Friday, 21 June 2013

OUR NIXON: THE TRICKY DICK WE KNEW AND LOVED

There is a moment,
watching the home movies of Tricia Nixon's wedding, when I wondered
what similar Super 8 footage of Sonny Corleone's marriage might
reveal. Our Nixon, which shows tomorrow at London's Open City Docs
Fest, is built around home movie footage shot by H.R. 'Bob' Haldeman,
John Ehrlichman, and Dwight Chapin, three of President Richard
Nixon's closest aides, three of his most loyal and devoted followers,
all of whom would wind up in jail, cut loose by their hero on his way
to becoming the only American president to quit in office.

The footage provides
behind the scenes looks at some of Nixon's biggest moments, including
the China visit, and his most important speeches. Context is set by
clips from network newscasts, and by post-prison interviews with the
three home movie makers. When I reviewed Nixon's Shadow, a
book about his image (you can link to that review here), I asked
whether, in Doonesbury's words, a new generation would recoil as they
ought to, and now the same question holds true. But here the answer is
more ambiguous.

The answer is that the
footage is so infused with the adulation of the cameramen that it's
almost hard to realise what is going on. Worryingly, I even found myself admiring
Tricia, something I never did when I was young. My feeling was that
viewers who were not there would not feel the almost visceral impact
of Nixon on the times, and it is impossible for the documentary
makers to summon that up from the past. Still there are surprises,
the biggest one for me being a small protest by two of the Ray
Conniff Singers when they performed at the White House. This was the
'square' music Nixon preferred, and the tiny banner of protest, and
the heartfelt Christian plea they make for peace does more to set
Nixon and Co. into context than any news reports.

Two things help make
Penny Lane's carefully structured film work for an audience to whom
Nixon is a blank slate, or worse, pace his posthumous re-evaluation,
a statesman. One is the personality of the three aides, who are so
obviously out of step with their own and our time as to exude
mistrust even as they try to appear ingratiating. These are frat
boys, squares themselves, Greg Marmalard and Doug Neidemeyer from
Animal House gone from frat house to White House. It was Dwight
Chapin's frat buddy Donald Segretti whose 'dirty tricks' on the 1972
election campaign got Chapin dumped, but also allowed the press a
chance to ignore the bigger issues of government spying and
malfeasance.

That took place under
Ehrlichman, who was in charge of putting together the 'plumbers' unit,
designed to counter White House leaks. Ehrlichman post-prison is
easily the most engaging of the three: one of the real highlights of
the film is a commercial he made, and which was quickly
withdrawn, for ice cream. He says it's 'unbelieveably good' and then
smirks 'and believe me, I'm an expert on that subject'. Stay through
the credits to see it.

Haldeman was truest of
true believers, cast as Martin Borman by his critics, all brush
cut and Rumsfeldian arrogance. He gives an interview about his
children calling his hair out of fashion, and, like his boss, admits
he is. In his most telling quote, he speaks of their arriving in
Washington with 'no great ideological thrust or noble ambition'. Once
out of prison, he's rocking a carefully styled 70s do, but it doesn't
change him at all. He still denies the truths the Watergate tapes
reveal, that he as chief of staff was engineering a major cover-up,
and unlike Ehrlichman, who doesn't seem surprised he never spoke with
Nixon again, Haldeman seems hurt by his abandonment by the Tricky One.. You almost feel sorry for him. You feel
even more sorry for his wife, who shows up in a few shots, always
looking like a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

The second thing that
helps us understand is a series of taped conversations which
sometimes reflect on the footage already shown. The last of these,
when an obviously drunken Nixon calls Haldeman after the speech
announcing his and Ehrlichman's 'resignations', is telling. Nixon curses what
he's done, but also asks Haldeman, whom he's just cut loose, to call round to get reactions to
how his speech went for him. We've previously heard both his need for
approval and Haldeman's unwavering willingness to provide that. And
we still can't shake the feeling, as we do when we hear Alexander
Butterfield explain to Nixon how the recording devices work, and
Nixon saying 'there may be a day we have to have this' that Nixon,
even drunkenly, was speaking for a record, double-accounting for
posterity.

There's a fascinating
discussion as Nixon, and Ehrlichman deconstruct a TV show they can't
identify, but is All In The Family, the American version of Til Death
Do Us Part, and how it glorifies homosexuality. Nixon takes the lead:
'You don't glorify homosexuality on public television. You know what
happened to the Greeks. Homosexuality destroyed them. Aristotle was a
homo, we all know that. So was Socrates.' 'But he never had the
influence television has,' adds Ehrlichman. 'The last six Roman
emperors were fags,' Nixon begins, and Ehrlichman cuts him off with
an explanation of 'fatal liberality' that Haldeman finally cuts
short. Speaking of that, the discussions of Henry Kissinger, his
duplicity, and his penchant for pillow talk, are fascinating.
Haldeman later explains that Nixon feels it's OK for Kissinger to 'be
a swinger in New York, Florida, or California, but he should not be
in Washington.' He advises 'not to put him next to the most glamorous
gal anymore, but to seat him next to some intelligent and interesting
woman instead.' This was the White House in 1971.

Along the way there are other amusing cameos and side views. Ehrlichman's camera reveals in
great detail the bidet in an ornate Paris hotel bathroom. Daniel
Moynihan pops up in the foreground as Nixon's helicopter takes off.
John Kerry speaks on behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against The War
during the March on Washington; this is the footage that the 21st
century equivalent of Nixon's frat boys, Shrub Bush and Karl Rove,
would use against him relentlessly 40 years later. When Nixon
complains no one's called to congratulate him on a speech, and
Haldeman says Nelson Rockefeller has, Nixon says 'well, the hell with
him!'. And there's celebrity TV interviewer Barbara Walters,
interviewing Haldeman, and carefully grimacing when he says history
will judge Nixon as one of the great presidents; the grimace, of
course, filmed later as a reverse.

But most important are
the glimpses of the real Nixon, whose gloating at the press reaction
to his announcement of peace with North Vietnam, a peace that never
arrived, is a masterpiece of hypocrisy. This is what I grew up
knowing, instinctively about Nixon, and what Our Nixon allows a new
generation to acquire at its own pace, and learn, as mine did, to
recoil.

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